Physical fitness is an ideal that has been held in high esteem since before humankind became civilized. In earlier days, being fit enabled an individual to better provide and work for a family or tribe. As time advanced, and sedentary lifestyles became more and more common, physical fitness has lost the immediate survival advantage, but has been indicated as a factor in overall health. Also today, athletes train physically regularly in order to maintain optimum and superior performance standards. In order to attain these goals, many devices, machines, appliances and constructs have been developed to engage the human body, or individual parts thereof, in a manner to increase the effectiveness of training.
On family of items that is used as training aids is used for an exercise commonly known as a “push-up”. The push-up has a number of forms, but the primary form involves an individual lying prone on a surface and using his or her arms to raise the individual's torso, all the while maintaining a stable and rigid back so that the individual pivots like a lever on his or her toes. The individual then lowers his or her body back towards the surface and repeats the process. The push-up tends to work the arm, shoulder and chest muscles as the motion is repeated and the abdominal and back, or “core,” muscles as these muscles are used to maintain proper form against gravity. Various modifications have been developed to increase or decrease the difficulty of a push-up or change the focus of the muscle groups worked in the exercise. Devices used to modify a push-up are usually in two forms: push-up bar assemblies and push-up handles. A push-up bar assembly is a raised bar that is positioned upon the surface, which the individual grasps while doing a push-up. Push-up handles are hand grips which contact the surface under the individual. Usually, either of these devices may be used to impart instability on the individual, and in so doing increase the effort of the core muscles and the arm muscles in order to maintain an appropriate push-up form. However, there has been a lack of simple push-up devices which are adaptable for increased or decreased stability and also for providing an adaptable support for users to then exercise specific muscle groups like the shoulders, which are heavily used in various styles of wrestling and other sports.
The present invention is a push-up bar assembly that is eccentrically mounted in a manner to provide instability and adaptability to an individual when preforming a push-up. The bar is mounted upon a pivot hinge located upon a base in a manner to allow free rotation along a z-axis. It is also pivotably mounted in the pivot hinge so as to allow rotation about an x-axis. This second rotational direction may be blocked by a pin so that only rotation about the z-axis is possible. Handgrips may be provided to the bar so that different hand holds may be employed and thereby modify the basic exercise to target individual body parts, such as the shoulder region.
The present invention represents a departure from the prior art in that the push-up bar assembly of the present invention allows for greater versatility in an individual user's exercise routine. It allows an individual user to determine a degree of instability in the bar so as to encourage the exercise of core and other muscles as the user maintains stability and also allows for various styles and techniques to be used in performing push-up exercises and in so doing the targeting of specific muscle groups.